Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5

Cask, gravity at Merton Winter Beer Festival 6th and 7th Feb 2009 Pours copper in colour with an off white head. This must be amongst the most aromatic of all of the Vale beers that I’ve ever had. Really very floral nose, lavender and perfume both very much apparent. The flavour whilst very nice never quite manages to pull out all the stops like the aroma and whilst it is the usual very solid and tasty Vale beer you get the feeling that this could have been even better. I was impressed with the use of Chinook, Wilamette and Perle hops and the first two definately gave this a slightly different twist but after a while those hops and the malts that were also much in evidence subsided a little and this just slipped back into being a decent beer when it could have been better. Looking forward to the March monthly special and hope that the experimentation goes that little bit further. A8 A4 F6 P3 OV13 3.4